"Do You Miss Him?"

"Do you miss him?"

These are the words I heard as I prayed after posting on Facebook this morning.

"Do you miss him?"

I knew God was talking to me about Justin. "Yes, Lord, I do. Of course I miss him. His smile, his laughter... Just the way he came into a room all elbows and energy. Of course I miss him. I love him."

"I know you do."

No tears, no anguish filled moments in that prayer. Peace covered me like a soft blanket in winter. The moment lingered as I drove the slower back streets of North Richland Hills in no particular rush. I continued the drive, meandering my way through to Southlake and thinking about the exchange. As I did, responses began to pop up on my Facebook. Words of condolences, words of prayer, words to comfort and words that encourage - people who remembered and people who never knew.

On vacation last week I spent time with some of those who were closest to me that same week six years ago. This year, in an unusual turn of events, the dates of 2005 fell exactly the same in 2011. Even more striking to my recollection, not only did the day of Justin's birth and death fall on exactly the same days of the week as they did six years ago, but his birthday in 2005 and 2011 matched exactly the day of the week he was born some 23 years ago.

The timing became amazingly significant. On the drive to and through Colorado we heard a number of worship and popular contemporary Christian songs. Several times we heard Natalie Grant's melodic voice grace the airwaves as the song I had played at Justin's funeral filled our ears.

"This is what it means to be held, how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it means to be loved and to know that the promise was when everything fails we'll be held." (From "Held," written by Krista Wells, as performed by Natalie Grant)

I had first heard that song while taking Scott to the airport to catch a flight to his maternal grandmother's funeral the early days of 2005. Life swung in a strange back and forth rhythm between something like normal and insanity with Justin back then. The words of the song captured both my attention and my heart that morning.

I picked up the CD of the song later in the spring when life continued to teeter irreversibly out of control where Justin was concerned. I popped the orange colored disc in my car's audio system and turned the volume all the way up. I drove the country roads of Wise County, Texas belting out the words to that song with all my heart as tears fell free time and time again.

I cried out to God in every way during those months as He both answered my prayers and reassured my heart that life would someday find a normal place again.

By midsummer I was nursing a new revelation. A knowing in my heart that left others around me unsettled and rebuking the devil. I heard the Lord say I needed to be prepared to lose my son. But instead of fear, a peace settled deep within me that never quite let go. "This is what it means to be held..."

As we travelled to Vail Valley this year on Sunday, August 14th, Mark Schultz came on the radio singing,

" I AM almighty God, Your father
The risen Son of Man
The Healer of the broken
And when you cry
I AM Your Savior and Redeemer
Who bore the sins of man
The Author and Perfecter
Beginning and the End -
I AM"

My heart felt a fluttering of remembrance. My mind went back six years to the week. I played that CD over and over again in my car as I made the nearly hour long drive from home to the hospital the week Justin lay in a coma fighting for his life. I wept and prayed those words, I believed for miracles and prayed for mercy. I felt His presence and His answers even in the very worst moments. "I AM...The Healer of the broken... who bore the sins of man."

On Monday, August 22nd, the seventh day after the car accident and my seventh wedding anniversary, Scott and I had stayed the night at home with my girls. I had delivered them to school before seeing my primary care doctor in our home town. Just before I arrived at the doctor's office my phone rang.

"Michelle, where are you?"Daddy's voice held a note of concern.

"I'm pulling into Dr. Hoover's office, Daddy. What is it?"

"Just get here as soon as you can. One of Justin's pupils won't respond to light and we are waiting for the neurosurgeon to come. They think his brain swelling may be pressing on his optic nerve. We don't know what it means for sure, but you need to get here as soon as possible."

"Okay, I'll come as soon as I'm done at the doctor."

That day played out like a roller coaster ride from hell. I arrived at the hospital a little more than an hour later. Tears flowed freely as Mark Shultz provided the soundtrack for my life on the drive to the hospital. All I could do was pray the same prayer I had prayed the first day as Pastor Ron drove me into the hospital... "Lord, please let him be alive when I get there..." Mark Schultz sang, "He's my son..."

Circumstances grew more grave by the minute after I arrived. The neurosurgeon had left the hospital without coming in to give us news of Justin's declining condition. I grew more frantic and hours passed while we still had no new information about what happened to my son overnight. Not only had his pupil begun to blow, but the one good kidney he had was showing signs of failure. They stopped the medicine that helped control the swelling in the brain hoping to curtail the negative effects on his kidney. We truly found ourselves in a waiting game situation.

By late afternoon I sat on the small roll-away cot the nurse had brought into his private room a few days before. His regular day nurse came in and did the usual vitals check and then she opened one eye and shined the small penlight she held in it. "No change."

She moved to the other eye which had been responsive throughout the day. "We're starting to lose this one now, too."

She looked at me with sorrow and pain on her face. I felt the sudden gasp of hope failing catch in my throat. My eyes grew moist for the thousandth time and I whispered, "That is not good is it?"

She shook her head, walked around to where I sat, and held me as I cried. "I'm so sorry. This is not what we hoped for..."

You know I cannot remember her name, but I remember her heart and how each of those health care professionals contended with us for my son's life. I will never forget. "This is what it means to be held..."

The Saturday night before --- the day we spent driving around Pike's National Forest this year--- had been a turning point in Justin's situation. He had been taken down to the CT room as they normally did every few hours to verify the condition had not grown worse or indeed that it had improved. Mostly, it just stayed the same.

I was dozing in and out of sleep when a team of nurses and doctors rushed through the doors of his room. They scurried about calling out medical terms working as one to fix whatever had gone wrong.

Panic gripped my heart as I asked, "What is wrong?"

His nurse turned and whispered, "While coming back up from CT his central line catheter came out. We tried to reinsert it but punctured his lung."

I stood and went out to the waiting room to sleep with Scott on a bench. I found it difficult to rest thinking my hurt boy lay in that bed with no medication to numb the pain. I prayed for mercy at that moment. "Father, if Justin is going to come back to us anything less than whole please have mercy on my son and give me peace to accept it..."

By Tuesday, August 23, 2005, we would know an answer after another round of scans. The nurse came in and injected radioactive dye into Justin's arm. I leaned over the bedrail and kissed his cheek. I laughed as I declared, "See you later, Justin, you'll be glowin' in the dark when they bring you back."

They kept him out of his room through midday. I blazed a trail from the waiting area to his room and back every ten or so minutes to see if he had been returned.

Shortly after lunch, the Chief of Surgery gathered our family in a tiny room to tell us the results. Justin no longer had blood flow to his brain. "We believe Justin is no longer with us."

The night before our entire church turned out to tell my son goodbye. Nurses granted my father special permission to bring back as many visitors as we could three at a time while two or three family members remained in the room at a time. We called it "the tour."

Dad would come out and say, "I can take three more."

Three people would step forward and he would walk them back. He would explain the monitors and vital signs before escorting them out and bringing back three more.

What I didn't realize at the time... My daddy didn't believe our boy was dying. He never gave up.

As we gathered around his bed that Tuesday afternoon waiting for the doctor to come in and turn off the machines, my daddy prayed through tears, "Lord, we ask you to use your mighty power to bring Justin back to us..."

The doctor came into the room to say the radiologist had ordered one more test. They wheeled him out again and I began my paces.

By 4:30 pm a few friends had come by so I waited with them in the lobby. Soon we would have a final word.

I went back a few minutes after 4:30 and saw my boy lying there in the bed. I stepped in and found his cranial pressure had slipped from triple digits down into the normal range. I had a moment when I felt hope rise up and I sat down on the stool beside his bed. I prayed, "Lord, either He is healed or he is home, make it sure either way."

The nurse entered with a staff chaplain and I knew what she had come to say. "We think his brain hemorrhaged as we brought him back up."

My boy's spirit was gone, his soul at rest, while his temple lived by the will of doctor's orders and machines.

We gathered the family one final time. The words of Malin in Steel Magnolias rings true of my experience, "They turned off the machines...There was no gasp or tremble just peace. It was the most precious moment of my life. I was there when that creature drifted into my life and I was there when she drifted out."

I pressed my arm up under his broad shoulders and lay my head upon his chest where I wept from a place deep inside. The deepest sorrow I have ever known. Bereaved.

Three years later on the anniversary of his death I found the joy in life again and the constant ache of grief ebbed away. "...And the days of your mourning shall come to an end." Isaiah 60:20

Behold, He does make all thing new. I live to tell the story of the great things He's done. He has indeed filled our mouths with laughter and our hearts with joy.

Thoughts from the Back Seat

A few observations from our trip to Colorado these last few days. Let me start by saying that it feels like we've entered another world entirely. On one hand you have the majestic Rocky Mountains: Specifically Vail Mountain while on the other hand you have all the commerce and tourist fare that would go with resort communities anywhere in the world. Still, in the middle of all that something wonderful rises up. Creation - all this creative energy permeates my entire being today.

As we drove up into the mountain ranges of Colorado from New Mexica I had some really fun and some really scary revelations. So... As they say on Broadway: "On With The SHOW!"

1. The view from the front seat is always broader. You can see the "big picture" or the "full landscape." The backseat however provides a limited perspective with more vivid details - Not all of them true to the bigger picture.

2. The lens through which I choose to see show only a part of what is really there. The lenses that God has given me reveal dimension, detail and design artificial lenses fail to capture.

3. My vantage point greatly determines not only what I see, but also the way I see it. HMMMM.

4. "Thar's Gold in them thar' hills." :)

5. Waterfalls are not as captivating at 60 mph as they are when I am standing still. :(

6. God truly is everywhere all the time, but today, as I sit very nearly on top of the world, I feel so close to him  both in proximity and heart. Sweet moments.

7. Chicken-brakes are useful when traveling downhill... On second thought, maybe not.  I wore out my invisible Chicken-brake as we descended out of Denver into Eagle County. What would it be like being a driving instructor in Eagle County, Colorado. Oh My!

8. Traction control may prove as dangerous as it is useful.

9. Hot brakes and wet pavement are not a good combination - especially when traveling rapidly down a steep declining roadway.

10. If the speed limit for trucks on mountain roadways is 35 mph then cars and non-18 wheeled vehicles should only travel 45 mph maximum. Just sayin' - Visions & Sounds of 80 mph with approaching brake lights while our tires skipped across the pavements are still dancing in my head.

BONUS: My favorite sign: "Lost Brakes? Don't exit."

Second Favorite was coming out of a tunnel: "Warning falling rocks and wildlife may be in roadway." Yikes!

It's been real. But, I know now more than ever...

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? ~Psalms 27:1 (NKJV)

Thank you, Lord!

 

Heading to the Mountains

Psalms 121:1-8 (HCSB)
¹ I lift my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
³ He will not allow your foot to slip; your Protector will not slumber.
⁴ Indeed, the Protector of Israel does not slumber or sleep.
⁵ The Lord protects you; the Lord is a shelter right by your side.
⁶ The sun will not strike you by day or the moon by night.
⁷ The Lord will protect you from all harm; He will protect your life.
⁸ The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.

 Father God, I pray to discover more of You as I go up to the mountain to pray, write and play in the days ahead. I pray to draw near to You and to family in the week ahead. To find refreshing and joy, and new inspiration for my journey. I pray Your angels would be 'round about us as we travel and they would deliver us safely to Your mountains and return us safely home. Give them charge over everything concerning us and thank you for this opportunity to go away with You and those I love. I pray all these things in Jesus precious name, Amen.



 

Freedom!

Fun week at Freedom Training! We have about 175 people (lay leaders and church staff) from across the country and around the world at our North Richland Hills campus this week. It is so amazing to realize the blessing of where I am and how humbling to be part of such an amazing team of leaders and Freedom Fighters! I am in awe of God tonight, on my face in worship. Thank you Jesus for every life you are preparing for change and the vessels they are of your grace!!! Ph happy day! :)

Self Awareness, Self Observation and Hearing God

You may be wondering why I am choosing to embrace my colorful self after reading my first post on this subject. My short answer and my long answer are the same: God told me "It's time." 

From my earliest memories I heard the conversations. Two or, at times, three voices talking in my head. Sometimes they agreeed - like when we wanted to play, and sometimes confusion reigned like when we felt scared. The conversations never seemed weird to me, I thought them normal. At four years old I never considered asking someone about the voices in my head.

Why am I colorful?

As I have spent time learning about myself through my collages and dialogues with my colors I discovered the truth that all my colors carry the best and the worst parts of me. The best parts are valuable, treasured and loved. The worst parts bring me to repentance and help me to realize my utter need of Jesus in my life.

My colors not only carry the best parts of me - they all represent part of who I am. The wholeness of my identity cannot be expressed without the colors. In some cases the colors may have names or some other expression of their ability to be separate from the core identity. Still the colors are valid, real representations of an aspect of their core's experiences and responses to life's realities.

As I have discovered the intricacies of these colors, I have realized how real they have been to me all these years. Their expressions, their mannerisms and their ability to relate all represent me. Who I really am. I have to choose them and they in turn have to choose me. Without their agreement I would not be able to find wholeness and safety in my identity.

I introduced you to the cast of heady characters sharing themselves with me in my last post. And late on Friday night the last of the colors chose to embrace Jesus and join me as my core identity. 

Afterwards I spent some time in reflective prayer with Jesus. Picture He and I sitting on the sofa in my living room.  He has just returned from escorting Red, Aqua and Brown into the center of our being. As He sits we begin to talk.

ME: Jesus?

JESUS: Yes, Michelle.

ME: Are they really part of me now... I mean, they really aren't separate from who I am anymore?

JESUS: Yes.

ME: Why did we separate?

JESUS: Well, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. But, life is hard sometimes. Too hard for little kids with undeveloped minds to handle. When things hurt or get too loud sometimes the mind just splits apart and walls off bad experiences - then the parts create jobs that need to be done to manage the damage.

ME: And You created me that way?

JESUS: Yes.

ME: Why didn't you just stop the things that would hurt?

JESUS: Because the plan doesn't work if We interfere with human will. The plan has to include you and those like you who choose to follow Us, be transformed by Us and teach others about Us even through their pain.

ME: I see.

Conversation in prayer. A conversation that involves talking, relating and asking questions. I also listen for the answers.  

Realizing how my right brain helps me related to God empowers me. The right brain houses my intution and my ability to interpret and translates that interpreation into expression through my left brain. Subconsciously our brain is always processing the information it receives. In our sleep, our right brain works processing the smallest details of our experiences throughout the day. Our right brain produces both dreams and nightmares. It brings us experiences of "deja vu." Our right brain helps us relate to God.

God created us mind, body and spirit. Three distinct parts with one identity and purpose not meant to be independent of one another, but instead they meant to be integrated. Three working as one helping us connect to God. The mind will and emotions must connect to the spirit for God to be realized in our lives. For transformation to happen our spirit must connect our mind, will and emotions to God. And furthermore, if we ever hope to receive physically from God we must first receive from Him through our spirit and our psyche or soul.

My mind has a unique ability to stop me from accessing things that would be destructive and hurtful. But, my body and my spirit still know what lies beneath the surface waiting to destroy me. These can be called strongholds. Areas of self-sufficiency where I have created a way to cope subconsciously or consciously with the painful and traumatic events of my life.

So, how did this all start for me?

Well, it started with that first brain map. I colored it and listened carefully to the thick, african accent as Dr. Mungadze spoke to us about the intricacies and the various functions and potential problems of the right brain. I heard colors mentioned and wrote furiously all I could capture as his words both wizzed by me and landed on me. I tried to catch as much as I could. Still I left without answers just the way a child often misses most of the bubbles he is chasing when the wind passes through the wand. I did not know what the colors in my brain could mean.

I took my brain map home and sat with it during my quiet time. "Lord, I don't know what this means, but you do. Would you tell me what is going on here?"

And God did. He began to explain. I later learned through another class with Dr. Mungadze that collaging helps people to understand the colors by giving expression for me to "talk to" the colors about. "The colors know why they exist there," he assures us, "ask them."

By the third time I sat in a room mesmerized by this fascinating subject - feeling the immaterial parts of me leaping for joy on the inside as I learned more and more. I continued to experiment by coloring brain map after brain map and talking to God about it. I must admit - talking to  colors felt unsettling. It really shook me at my core. As much as I wanted to know more, I realized that to have a better understanding I would have to experience the reality of what Dr. Mungadze shared.

By this time, my brain presented fairly calm and normal. Lots of faith and peace appeared to be present. Dr. Mungadze's associate commented, "This looks like a fairly normal functioning brain."

Excited by his words, I wrote my interpretation: "Pretty calm brain, fairly normal functioning." Well except for the reaction triggered at the end of the night which produced a rage in me I did not quite understand. A rage connected to how others were feeling and acting around me. A rage that consumed me and frustrated me.

I stepped into the car at the curb where my husband waited to drive me home and said, "I bet my whole front brain is red right now."

My front brain indeed held the color red. The anger pulsed through me like red, hot lava and erupted in verbal expression as I vented to my oversight pastor by phone. I clearly had been triggered but I didn't know why.

I went home and sat down with my crayons and a fresh brain map. The colors had begun to subside and my once red frontal lobe now presented pink - in a highly emotional state. Red had been locked up in what my colors refer to as "the closet" and I settled down to pray. God showed me that the red had come up because of how I felt about women who would not speak up for themselves and who would say they were fine when everything else about them screamed they were not. Red's anger frightened me. I didn't know if I wanted to learn more about that color or not.

Over the months since that day I have colored brain maps after arguments with my husband and discussions with my friend. I have tried to manipulate the colors and just put in a color that I "wanted" but when I asked my brain where it went I would always select a different color. I don't know how or why it works, but I just know that what my brain has revealed to me through the colors has not only made me more aware of who I am, where I need to allow God to work and what has happened to me along the journey to this place... They have also helped me to discover God in a whole new way. Deeper, more sweetly embraced. An intimacy with God opens to me now more than I have ever experienced before.

 A few weeks ago I stood at the bathroom counter, hair dryer in hand, when I heard clearly, "You need to color your brain today."

I knew the voice well enough to know God wanted me to take a detour from my morning routine. He and I have been dialoguing this way for a few years now. At least since I sat in Bob Hamp's class on "Hearing God." That night I asked the Lord if there had been a lie I had believed about You. His response, "You think I've been sitting up here waiting for you to screw up so I can say, 'Gotcha!'" 

I found myself amused by His reply.  "If that is a lie, what is the truth to replace it?"

He then said, with so much love I could feel it, "I've got you. Stop trying so hard."

What else would I do when I hear God? I colored my brain map and asked God about what I saw there. There in the midst of all the colors I had come to recognize in my own brain experience sat GRAY. Gray I would learn had been there when Jesus knit me together in my mother's womb. Half praying and half conversing with the colors I had the realization that Gray liked to pretend. Gray hid something in my memories from me.

The collage I did after this particular brain map stirred up anxious and fearful feelings. I reeled with inadequacy and felt stuck. I wanted to be free. I wanted to know what the pictures and the stories meant and I wanted the anxiety and the fear to stop. I didn't know how.

By the time I saw Dr. Mungadze at another training class my heart pounded wildly as I waited for him to look at my brain map and confirm or redirect the processing I had done. He confirmed what I had come to realize. Gray it would turn out also had a demonic link. A spirit of self-sufficiency deeply rooted in me generationally that manipulated my subconscious and interjected pretense as often as possible.

Gray not only pretended... Gray out and out lied. I went home that afternoon and collaged Gray from Google images on my computer. I would be making an appointment with Dr. Mungadze within the week.

By the time I arrived at his office I had fully embraced my "brain family" which simply means I accepted that my subconscious mind had created barriers and jobs that allowed them to be separate from my consciousness on a regular basis. This led me to the realization that in order to understand what had happened I would have to call "them" up in my subconscious and invite them to share their stories with the consciousness of me.

I entered his small office with two collages, a painting, a notebook full of brainmaps, his teaching notes and a dialogue I had already conducted with Gray, Blue and Purple. My desire? Have him help me see if I had missed any part of what my brain demonstrated in the collages and the brain maps. He affirmed my work to be quite thorough and we laughed out loud at some parts of the dialogue as I recognized that on some level Gray had worked hard to wall God out of my subconscious brain. Gray warred with the Yellow in my brain all the time. Fighting against my faith to keep me from being free. 

Before I left I knew the next part of my work to be done. Pink and Green had come up for air and their feelings stirred deep within me for days. I arrived home and collaged them straight away. By the end of the night I had dialogued and introduced Pink to Jesus and convinced Green that Jesus helps us to be family. Both decided to join Jesus at the center of my being and Brown and Orange settled on having nothing better to do - they should join Jesus, too.

As for the colors... I found Pink to be delightful. A little girl of four in every sense of the word and age.

A couple of my favorite moments with Pink:

ME: Do you remember Blue and I talking about Jesus?

PINK: (giggling) I remember Jesus. He is my favorite. He gave us to Mommy and Daddy, Right?

ME: Yes, Pink. That is right. What else do you remember about Jesus?

PINK: (singing) Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white... (sudden feelings of extreme sadness.)

ME: Pink, are you sad?

PINK: Jesus don't love Pink.

ME: Oh, well... Pink. That son is about the outside color not the inside colors.

PINK: What color are we on the outside?

ME: White.

PINK: (giggles) OOOOOHHHH! I get it, silly.

And then after Pink decides she wants to go with Jesus she takes a moment to run back to me.

ME: (kneeling down) What is it, Pink?

PINK: (takes my face in her hand) Will you really be okay?

ME: Yes, I'm sure. Jesus said I would. He's taking care of me.

PINK: But what about Mommy and Daddy? Won't they miss me? 

ME: Mommy and Daddy won't have to miss you because you will be a part of me. You just won't be a separate part of me. If you go with Jesus, you'll be one with me and that will make growing up easier.

PINK: Will youp play with me still?

ME: Yes. You will be the part of me that loves to laugh and play and sing always. I love you, Pink. Jesus is waiting go to Him.

PINK: Okay, I will. I love you, too. (she runs to Jesus and takes His hand. She looks back and waves) See you later.

As I said before the conversations have always been there - the voices of accusation and confusion, the voices of argument and conflict, the voices of escape and wistfulness, the voice of God. I've heard them mixed and mingled into my thoughts throughout my life. I had always heard it said, "It's okay to talk to yourself, just don't answer yourself because that means your crazy."

Who could I tell about the conversations in my heard without sounding crazy? I talked to myself, in fact, I had arguments with myself. I answered. That makes me crazy.

 All I know today can be expressed this way: On Friday, for the first time in my life I wept in the arms of Jesus over all that I've discovered in these last few weeks. I wept tears, but not just any tears. The tears that fell... Mine. Not Red's, Pink's, Orange's, Blue's... Not any of the color's tears - these tears belonged to me. Afterward, Jesus helped me to fully and finally release those who had hurt me through forgiveness including myself and the colors. When I asked Him for an exchange - He gave me a picnic basket full of flowers representing all the colors in my brain. He took them in his hand and wove them into a wreath. He wrapped the wreath with a white ribbon and then placed it on my head.

"That's perfect. Now you will always have them with you right where they belong."

Jesus loves me this I know, for He, the Word, tells me so... Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. He always tells me so.